Analysis of customer needs for food products using kano model, a case study of steamed brownies

Abstract

Recently, the increased interest in the food business has led to fierce competition among players in the sector. Due to this condition, the quality of food produced needs to be evaluated and systematically designed. Conventionally, the development of products such as ingredient formulation, re-engineering process, installation of new, and more sophisticated type of equipment is driven by technology. However, in a competitive business environment, customer satisfaction becomes the major theme, and the development of products that relies only on technology push may result in failure as the developed products may not meet the customer expectations. Therefore, controlling products that the customer needs is an important issue to be addressed. This research aimed to analyze the quality of a food product that met the customer's needs. Moreover, the product was steamed brownies and was produced by small-medium enterprises (SMEs) in Surakarta (Indonesia). Kano model was applied to ascertain the customer satisfaction attributes and the result showed that there were twelve quality attributes that were identified as the 'voice' of the brownie customers. The Kano diagram categorized two attributes into Attractive elements, eight into One Dimensional group and the other two into Indifferent attributes. In addition, the quality attribute classification was beneficial for the brownie producers to determine the direction of product development that brought about a higher level of customer satisfaction.